April 29, 2014

The other day the Midland Reporter Telegram (MRT.com) had it's own Pauline Kael moment in an editorial about the bulging bond debt that burdens the residents of the county and city of Midland, Texas. The bond debt is huge, no question about that. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs has done a great job of opening voters' eyes, although so far it hasn't had much of an effect.

The bond debt issue is one we have put out there for our readers, usually to the sound of crickets.

They don't know anyone who is concerned about the debt. Poor Pauline Kael suffered the same condition. She's the New Yorker film critic who said after Richard Nixon won the presidential election, “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” (See this for the actual quote.)

Much like Pauline Kael's rather special world, the MRT brass' special world is one in which no one is concerned about the mountain of debt created by the local taxing entities. Their world is inhabited by the folks who promote, not oppose, the bond proposals. See, for example, how they heap praise on them.

If they could step out of their cloistered world they might hear a different side. Captain Watchdog Jason Moore could give them an earful. Currently, a small group of people who really want a bond passed can get it passed with a tiny percent of the registered voters in an election with a light turnout. Moore made an excellent suggestion that bond proposals shouldn't be allowed to pass unless a certain percentage of registered voters vote for it. He hears more than crickets when he speaks.

Charles Murray was right. We congregate with like minded people. There's nothing wrong with that unless you're trying to lecture people outside your circle.

April 28, 2014

The other day the morning paper editors were busy lecturing conservatives about how many of them went to the defense of Cliven Bundy. And in their effort to bolster their point that conservatives fall in love the wrong kind of people they made a remarkable statement. To wit:

We saw it in the 2008 presidential election when John McCain took a chance with a virtual unknown -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- as his running mate. While she was quick to inspire many with a convention speech for the ages, she showed a lack of depth on issues Americans should require of their leaders.

See what they did there? "[S]he showed a lack of dept on issues American should require of their leaders." The media were so busy hammering Palin that they forgot to vet Barack Obama the first time, they ignored his lack of depth on issues Americans should require of their leaders both times, and they got him elected twice. That's what love will do to you.

And as if to prove that lack of depth, on the same day on another page we get a headline that says this:

US efforts have exposed vast differences in Mideast

The Palestinians and Israelis have differences. Who knew? Apparently we all do now, because the Obama administration has exposed them. That's something one might expect to see in the Onion.

Meanwhile, for a better take on the media and Cliven Bundy, see News Media Ambush Cliven Bundy where Edward Cline chastises conservatives for turning tail when the media uses their old tricks on them.

Editor's note: If the morning paper disappoints you so much why did you pay $208 for a full year's supply? Robo-ed. | It's a bargain when you think of it as a source for material. Sleepless.

April 27, 2014

Two powerful and highly addictive drugs combined into one convenient pill. Sounds like a dangerous mix, but some people need some powerful pain relief.

This new drug has hit a roadblock, however. The manufacturer contends that it doesn't have as high a risk of respiratory side effects as other opioid pain relievers. But the FDA advisory committee didn't buy it.

At the conclusion of a hearing, the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted 14-0 against recommending that the agency approve Moxduo, the first drug to combine morphine and oxycodone into one capsule.

The committee also voted unanimously that the drug's developer had not proved that Moxduo is less likely to cause potentially life-threatening respiratory suppression than taking morphine or oxycodone alone.

There's no indication that the FDA will go against the committee recommendation.

But this is an area that certainly needs work. It takes a skilled physician to treat pain successfully -- they say it's like threading a needle to get just the right pain relief without impairing the patient's cognitive functions or breathing ability. We've probably all known people who suffered at the hands of a physician who hadn't quite mastered that skill. But maybe someday it won't be a problem.

April 26, 2014

Fargo, a TV show that premiered a couple of weeks ago is a spinoff from the movie "Fargo." One of the main features in the movie was the snowy landscape of wintery Minnesota, and we get that in the TV show, too. We also get some similar characters, for example, Martin Freeman plays a character similar to the William H. Macy character in the movie. There are other similarities to the movie but also some big differences. Unfortunately, there's no Steve Buscemi character, at least so far, unless it's supposed to be Billy Bob Thornton's character.

Thornton plays an underhanded problem solver for hire who moonlights as a transient serial killer. So when a bunch of murders occur just after this stranger comes to the small town of Bemidji, MN, some of the townsfolk are suspicious.

Law officers and vengeful mobsters ask around about this stranger, and they got a fairly decent physical description. But it's an icy country. And the temperature is so cold there that it must freeze that portion of the ear drum that detects regional accents. Because no one seemed to have noticed that the mysterious stranger spoke with an Arkansas accent. But the credits say "this is a true story" in all caps, so we have to accept some inconsistencies.

First two episodes: One frozen corpse, one head bludgeoning, one shotgun murder, one brain stem stabbing, and one live person dropped in hole drilled in frozen lake.

April 25, 2014

Here we are once again at the Fox Friday Undocumented Wildlife Preserve. The foxes are shy creatures of the night, and they wouldn't want a lot of attention, so the locaiton remains undiscloced.

This past week only one fox up at time showed up for the free lunch, if the feral cats didn't get it first. The fox known as Old Crooked Tail didn't show up, or maybe she simply didn't show off her namesake feature. Nevertheless, here are some exiting scenes from the bone yard. Click on the thumbnail for the big picture.

These two photos were taken about ten minutes apart. The area on our left could be a potential entry way for other animals, and that may explain the fixation. But notice the open mouth in the photo on the right. Perhaps she's beckoning a mate. If so, he didn't show.

One more from that series. Eyes down, looking for that food.

On another night Swoop drops in for a snack. What a magnificent looking tail. It's at least as long as the body.

Photo note: These photos were taken in the dead of night with an infrared flash. When the foxes are front and center they have a washed out appearance, so gamma adjustments were made on some.

April 24, 2014

The other day was Earth Day, the sacred day of environmentalists and anti-capitalists.

But Earth Day shouldn't slip by without a nod to the guy whose idea it was. And the editors at dollarsandcrosses.com remind us that Earth Day's founder, Ira Einhorn, was so deeply into recycling that he composted his ex-girlfriend. It's safe to assume that her participation in that environmental project was not voluntarily.

Somehow it actually does fit together. Environmentalists, for the most part, seem to yearn for a world without people, by which they mean other people.

We noted previously that Typepad (this blog's host) has been the victim of a vicious DDoS attack which took them off line completely for a several days. And blogs like mine (with the blogs.com suffix) were off even longer.

Anyway, as of this morning, 4/24/14, they may be out of the woods. I hate to sound too optimistic because the last victory celebration was premature. But here's hoping.

It really must be hard on the poor workers who had to pull all nighters to sort it all out and straighten it up. Kudos to them. And let's add one more hope: that the culprits get what's coming to them.

April 23, 2014

Glenn Greenwald's website firstlook.org/theintercept/ is undergoing a revamping to eventually shift from an Edward Snowden leak reporting website to a news website.

Meanwhile, some of the stuff they've already put out still deserves attention. For example, see How the NSA Plans to Infect ‘Millions’ of Computers with Malware about the program that would attempt to infect computers with a program that would send files to another location. It sounds a little like the FBI's CIPAV but without the warrant and individual targeting.

These programs wouldn't be detectable by the American made off-the-shelf anti-virus program, or if they were, the companies would be prohibited from disclosing them. But surely there are some entrepreneurs in some other Western countries who could figure it out and develop a virus detector that could remove government sponsored malware. There are opportunities out there, just not here in the U.S.

The Typepad.com employees must have really felt the pain as they worked to recover from a horrendous the DDoS attacks.

What a cruel thing for someone to do. But what was the motivation? It could have been an extortion attempt. But lately we've seen some awful things done to innocent people because of their political beliefs. So it's easy to conjure up a conspiracy theory involving a politically motivated effort to silence some political blog and a refusal by Typepad owner, Say Media, to give in. Maybe we'll find out some day.

Meanwhile, Sleepless in Midland appears to have gotten back online as of around 2:00am today after being down for a few days. Keep up the good work, Typepad!

Here's a witness statement from Josh Earnest, a deputy White House press secretary,

"I was like, 'Oh I should take a picture. This is crazy. There is a fox at the White House,' " Mr. Earnest said. "And he was gone."

I'm like, dude, you sound like a valley girl. And seriously, if you want a photo why don't you set out a critter cam?

Regular visitors of this blog are familiar with the weakness I have for urban foxes, especially on Fox Friday. So the idea of a fox prowling the White House grounds really warms my heart. I sure hope they don't kill the furry little canine.

April 19, 2014

You can find some interesting items in the lost and found section of the classified ads. A few years ago a friend alerted me to an ad for a lost Glock -- the owner had placed it on the roof of a car, got in, and drove off. Buh bye Glock.

Yesterday (Friday) there was an ad saying some bees were found in a tree. Would the owner please come get them.

It sounds almost like one of those first world problems that pop up at joke websites.

So was it a joke? Or did the homeowner come up with a clever way to game the classified ad system of no charge for "found" items? I'm going with the latter. But who knows? Maybe a beekeeper showed up and said, "Yup, those are my bees. Now get along home, boys."

April 18, 2014

For some reason the foxes didn't visit the feeding arena as frequently as they did last week. Hopefully that means they're getting plenty of food elsewhere.

These photo were taken on the evening of 4/15/2014. (The moon was full, and there had been a Lunar eclipse in the early hours that day, however there were no photos snapped or animal visits during the time of the eclipse.)

There's very little light even with a full moon. So they see with their noses.

She scouts the area and spies a portion of leftover squirrel carcass. They love squirrel.

April 17, 2014

Maybe the changes that the White House made to the census really were overdue and the clouding of the before Obamacare and after Obamacare data was a mere coincidence. But this administration has demonstrated time and again that if there's a choice between doing the right thing and making themselves look good, the latter prevails at every opportunity.

Anyway, the Politico headline was very administration friendly. Elect a Republican president and watch the main stream media turn into a watch dog media overnight.

April 16, 2014

What will they think of next? Apparently, there's a Senate rule against using any video of Senate proceedings for campaign purposes. But Louisiana Senator Landrieu wanted to show potential voters how forceful she can be on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. So they made a campaign commercial showing her getting tough with some unseen participant at a Senate hearing. But they faked it with a reenactment complete with background aids who may or may not be the same one who were at the hearing.

This comes to us by way of IJReview.com. It's worth it so see how campaign ads are designed to deceive the low information voter.

April 15, 2014

Regular Sleepless in Midland readers know all about the Midland, Texas, city code prohibition against the use of police radio scanner traffic.

So it was interesting to see a front page article in the Midland Reporter Telegram, aka the morning paper, about scanner usage by news media, including themselves. They've been doing it for years in flagrant violation of local code. Meanwhile, their editorial writers serve as public scolds.

To be fair, they say in the article that they're trying to do better and won't actually publish "scanner reports online and in the newspaper." Here's the excerpt:

The Reporter-Telegram’s has a policy against publishing local scanner reports.

“At one time, the Reporter-Telegram was one of the biggest offenders, but this is information that has not been confirmed by law enforcement authorities or journalists, which is why we stopped using scanner reports online and in the newspaper,” said Editor Stewart Doreen.

That doesn't get them off the hook. They seem only concerned with publishing the actual words heard through the scanner. However, if they use the information in any way for their benefit -- to get a lead, to further a story, to get a jump on the competition, etc. -- they've violated the code.

6-1-9. Police radio; interception of communications. No solicitor, or other person, not being authorized by the City, shall intercept any communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purpose, effect or meaning of such intercepted communication, and no solicitor or other person, not being entitled thereto, shall receive or assist in receiving any message emanating through the medium of KKA-662, and use the same or any information therein contained for his own benefit, or for the benefit of another solicitor or person. (Ord. of 3-24-1953)

We've had fun with this in previous blog posts. It's a pretty good example of an antiquated law that no one has the courage to repeal. But the news media maintain a cozy relationship with government. And just like David Gregory gets away with brandishing an illegal rifle magazine on national TV, they know the government won't touch them. Laws are for the little people.

Editor's note: Could this be a prelude to an announcement that the emergency services are going to hit up city coffers for a high tech radio system that bypasses scanners? Robo-ed. | Hmm. We'll have to keep an eye out for that. Sleepless.

April 14, 2014

Thomas Sowell does it again in A Halo for Left Wing “Special Interests”. Ostensibly, it's about how "special interest group" is a phrase only used on opponents, not friends. But what I take from the article is his comments on how hard it is to unseat incumbents.

Here are a few excerpts:

Publicity is necessary to win elections, and incumbents get millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity from the media. Incumbents can all pontificate in Congress and be covered by C-SPAN. They can get interviewed on network television, have their pictures in the newspapers, and send out mail to their constituents back home — and none of this costs them a dime.

Boy, we sure do see that here in Midland, Texas. The morning paper seems to go out of its way to give the U.S. Representative coverage. My favorite was an article appearing after a train/vehicle accident here in which he said he was looking forward to the NTSB investigators' report. Stop the presses!

Sowell goes on:

Congressional staffs, paid by the taxpayers, are supposed to help members of Congress with the burdens of their office, but a major part of their staff’s work is to help get them re-elected.

Our local Representative told an audience that he has a full time staff person whose job it to get him coverage. If it's still only one person I guess we should feel fortunate.

More from Sowell:

The very high rate of incumbent re-elections, even while polls show the public disgusted with Congress in general, shows how well incumbents are protected.

The media are accessories to this scam.

Yup. But I'm taking Doc Sowell out of context. He is addressing the left vs the right and the main stream media's role in it whereas I'm making it local. Read the whole thing to get the full benefit of his brilliance.

At long last Remington has admitted the problem is a specific trigger mechanism -- X-Mark Pro® (“XMP®”) triggers, manufactured from May 1, 2006 to April 9, 2014, and they've offered to fix it for free. The recall notice can be found here: Safety Warning And Recall Notice.

April 12, 2014

Unpacking Progressivity is Ms. Shlaes article at NationalReview.com. It's actually a review of a book advocating higher taxes on the rich, but what makes the article worth reading is her summation of "progressivity," a word not fully understood by most.

She notes that progressivity was first introduced in the U.S. in 1913 with the income tax. Then this:

Over the hundred years intervening, studies have shown that generally people do think that the greater the wealth, the more dollars wealthy people should pay in tax, proportionally. But that is not a progressive rate structure. That is a flat tax. A progressive tax increases rates as you earn more, disproportionally. ...

Politicians, and the economists behind them, simply played off citizens’ ignorance. The simple early code of 1913 became complex and, yes, more onerous.

The real question should be why Americans allow themselves to be intimidated, especially when it comes to progressivity.

She offers two answers. One is that people don't want to admit that they don't understand, so, "like the Enron audit committee, they simply nod and go along." The other is that they don't want to appear unfair. Progressives take advantage of this.

Ms. Shlaes, with her uncomplicated explanation, is trying to help people overcome this ignorance.

Cummings has been mob-lawyer fanatical about defending the IRS and Lois Lerner. It's pretty obvious they were trying to suppress conservative votes, and most of us wondered why Cummings was as vehement as he was.

I guessed that he was merely angling for a big reward from Obama or another Democrat president down the road -- an appointment as head of some big agency, for example. Now it looks like he may have been trying to hide his own involvement.

It came to light that Cummings was hounding the IRS to target True the Vote in 2012. The IRS complied and even gave tax info about True the Vote to Cummings. See oversight.house.gov for more details.

Just watch. Cummings will claim there was nothing unusual about this -- members of Congress make inquiries to agencies all the time. He didn't report it to the committee because it was meaningless. Besides, it was some junior staff member's fault.

April 10, 2014

The A-10, the venerable old low flying war bird is hard to shoot down with conventional firepower. But budget power is something else.

The A-10 is still headed for the scrap yard. However, a small contingent of Senators, Ayotte, McCain, and Chambliss, are making a good case for keeping the Warthog. They cite an incident in Afghanistan last July, to wit:

At one point during the two hour fire fight, enemy forces were close enough to engage the soldiers with grenades and helicopters could not be called in to evacuate the injured. When the A-10 arrived on the scene, it flew 75 feet above the enemy position, conducted 15 gun passes within 50 meters of friendly ground forces, and used its famous 30 millimeter nose cannon to fire 2,300 rounds.

The performance of the A-10 that day saved the lives of 60 Americans.

Those planes can take a lot of punishment and keep on going. See these photos, for proof.

The airplanes didn't bring it down, it was beauty brought it down. OK, the "King Kong" line doesn't work exactly right. But substitute "politicians" for "beauty" and it makes more sense.

If you haven't seen a video of a railgun in action, check out: this one at military.com. (Note, browsers with tracker blockers will have to accept the Brightcove tracker in order to view the video.)

The Navy is hoping it can serve to defend against Cruise missiles and possibly ballistic missiles. But it takes a lot of energy to power it, so for Navy usage a ship's engine will power a bank of capacitors which will create the 32 megajoules that would accelerate the projectile down the barrel toward a target up to100 nautical miles away.

Presumably they've got the computer power to calculate the trajectory and drop over that distance, because it's point and shoot without an on board guidance system.

I wonder how long it will be before some tinkerers get one to work from the power generated by a 12 volt car battery. Although a home defense system that could punch a hole through every house on the block might be a little excessive.

April 09, 2014

There's a stand off in Nevada between the BLM and a rancher named Cliven Bundy because Mr. Bundy stopped paying fees the government charged him to graze his cattle on government land. According to Elizabeth Harrington at Freebeacon.com, Bundy's family has used the land since the 1870s, and Bundy believes his cows are entitled to graze on it free of charge. And currently there's a force of armed government agents stationed around the land.

It's hard to say that this a case of government harassment of innocent citizens and not a case of property rights enforcement.

However, it does raise a couple of points.

First, the government owns too much land -- slightly less than a third of all the land that comprises the United States. Source. The land outside the park system should be sold in fair and legitimate transactions and put in private hands. Not only would it raise money to help pay off federal debt, but private owners could not only put the land to better use but would probably serve as better stewards of the land.

Second, last year we heard about how the government was buying billions of rounds of ammo for training. If only they wouldn't train to use it on citizens.

From the stimulus to cash-for-clunkers, from the bailouts to cap-and-trade, from Dodd-Frank to Obamacare, every name-brand initiative of the Obama era has distorted public policy to privilege well-connected insiders and elites at the expense of taxpayers and consumers. ...

Policy privilege corrupts the free market by rewarding political connections over competitive excellence. It subverts the rule of law by codifying inequality. It undermines social solidarity by pitting citizens against one another, twisting cooperative communities into rival special interests.

Then he gets dreamy.

Imagine a reformed Republican party seizing the moral high ground against political corruption and economic dysfunction. Imagine its leaders, advocating populist, free-market reforms to restore jobs, growth, and fairness to the economy. Faster than you can say “TARP,” we could pin the Left between their egalitarian facade and their elitist agenda, and force them to choose between K Street and Main Street.

For starters Lee suggests that Congress not reauthorize the Export Import Bank which he says exists "to dole out taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to help American exporters. Most of the benefits go to large corporations that are perfectly capable of securing private financing anywhere in the world."

Heck, even the Occupy Wall Street movement should get behind this. And it will be a good litmus test -- as if there haven't been enough already -- to see which Republicans respect taxpayers more than their cronies.

Those jurisdictions that implemented medical marijuana legalization, according to the researchers, experienced "no noticeable local uptick among a whole suite of crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft." (Quote from Emily Badger.)

But there was also a decline in assaults and murders. Why? Maybe this: "Given the relationship between alcohol and violent crime [31], it may turn out that substituting marijuana for alcohol leads to minor reductions in violent crimes that can be detected at the state level."

April 05, 2014

The annual tax headache is upon us. As Americans struggle with their tax preparation software to get their 1040 and accompanying schedules in order, it probably should be comforting that so many Americans detest the whole thing.

When a Reason-Rupe poll tells us that 62% favor a flat tax, Congress people should get on the ball.

But no. There's an entire industry in place to deal profit from this annual headache, and the people in that industry would squeal like stuck pigs if anything threatened the status quo.

So we're saddled with a system so complicated that even experts in the field can't figure it all out. Maybe some day our country can so as well for its taxpayers as Russia and others that implemented the flat tax.

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Another remarkable poll result is in the category of privacy. There, 35% ranked the IRS higher than None (28%) in a ranking of the IRS, the NSA, Google, Facebook, None, and Don't Know. Clearly the news about IRS and Tea Parties hasn't moved the market.

April 04, 2014

There must be more than one fox that scavenged the bone yard and got snapped by the Fox Cam. But they look so similar it's difficult to tell them apart. However, there's one with a recognizable characteristic. I've been calling him "Old Crooked Tail."

Well, Old Crooked Tail mooned us the other night. See below.

And by golly, "he" may be a "she." Maybe I should call her "Ms. Crooked Tail." And wouldn't it be grand if she had some pups? Get busy, girl!

For an example of how similar the foxes look, see the two photos below. The photos were taken about an hour apart, and the foxes are in roughly the same spot in the field of view.

Surely, these must two different foxes. The one on the left looks a little bit larger than the one on the right, however that could be the slight difference in distance from the lens. They would be difficult to distinguish but for the crooked tail.

But, on a different night these two photos were taken about 12 seconds apart. It has to be the same fox, so maybe the crooked tail is just an affectation.

Hey, what the? Where did you come from, and why aren't you in some foxes belly? Fair warning. There are two road-kill foxes in the freezer, and the foxes will get a taste of squirrel this next round.

April 03, 2014

There have been two mass shooting in less than five years at Fort Hood. The fact that these type things could happen on a military base is baffling until we remember that domestic bases are gun free zones. The people in the line of fire must have been thinking, "If only I had a gun to defend myself."

Third, it’s difficult to justify this mandatory vulnerability. Every soldier is trained to use a weapon. Downrange, every soldier carries a weapon at all times – even in the largest, safest bases where soldiers never get within sight of the enemy – and in almost 13 years of war, these soldiers have proven they can responsibly carry firearms in non-combat situations. When I deployed, I kept my M4 and my sidearm with me at all times, day and night, with both in easy arm’s reach even when I slept. In fact, I’d argue there’s a real virtue in a soldier maintaining constant contact with his weapon. It creates a sense of accountability along with ease and comfort of use. Especially for soldiers in the support ranks, this kind of easy familiarity with a weapon can be critical if and when they find themselves in combat.

Fourth, note the ease with which even the most extreme gun-control rules are violated, with deadly consequences.

Progressives have made it clear they want to an unarmed citizenry and that only police and military should have weapons. So it seems weird that they want to treat individuals in the military with the same disrespect they hold for citizens.